Our Failing Naked Emperor

One of the defining characteristics of the Trump campaign and administration is the utter disregard for the facts. There was some hope by Trump supporters that once he transitioned from campaign mode to presidential mode, he would also abandon his strategy of habitual fabrication. That hope died with the inauguration. Trump’s inaugural crowds were factually smaller than Obama’s, but no one in the Trump administration and no one in the Republican establishment were willing to call Trump out as a liar. Instead we’re dealing with this interesting situation where he, his administration, and his supporters blame media bias for every report that details yet another Trump lie.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the emperor is still naked.

That “nakedness” is finally causing more than embarrassment. This “strategy” has made it more difficult for Republicans to govern. We are now 9 months into a legislative session where Republicans control all branches of government, and the ONLY enduring evidence of this control is Gorsuch’s SCOTUS appointment. Even that has an asterisk because McConnell had to remove the 60 vote filibuster in order to get it done.

One example is the recent failure to pass healthcare which Trump blamed on the filibuster rule in the Senate. The FACT was that the healthcare reform bill wasn’t subject to a filibuster. It only required a simple 50 vote majority to pass because of reconciliation rules. It failed to get 50 votes because several Senators from the President’s own party refused to vote for it. McCain refused to vote for it because Republicans bypassed the normal committee process where all interested parties would have an opportunity to comment and all points of view could be considered. Paul refused to vote for it because it wasn’t conservative enough. Collins refused to vote for it because she feared it would have resulted in the loss of healthcare insurance coverage in her state. The bill died before it could ever get a vote, so we don’t know how many others would also have voted against it.

Another example is his regular rant about the biased media and fake news failing to report on his accomplishments. The problem is, just like the inauguration, there isn’t much there. Worse yet, Trump’s own obsession to dominate every news cycle makes it difficult for even his modest accomplishments to get much play. Instead he regularly distracts from his legislative agenda by picking fights and fanning the flames of the culture war.

A third example is the Republican establishment who, in Trump’s description have let the Russian investigation get out of control and secretly oppose his agenda.

What is true is that Trump’s agenda, if in fact he truly has one, is failing because he hasn’t provided the policy to support his bold promises.

Healthcare failed three times because he had promised to provide better coverage to more people at a lower cost. None of the bills that were proposed accomplished that, even though Trump at one point or another supported all of them. Instead they were thinly (and in the last case not so thinly) veiled attempts to dismantle Medicaid. As those realities became apparent to more people, opposition mounted and the bills failed.

Tax reform will suffer a similar fate. Though Trump promised a bill that would benefit the middle class and not reward the wealthy, the bill that is currently being considered does what every other Republican tax initiative has done. The bulk of the benefits go to the wealthiest 1% of the country.

This is not the result of a conspiracy of the Republican establishment to undermine Trump. If anything, Trump has passively allowed Congressional leadership to fill in the blanks on his promises. The problem is that the bills in their final form were not even close to what Trump promised, and he didn’t seem to care.

The cause is years of Republican bad faith campaigning. Republicans promised that they could replace Obamacare with something better if they only had the majority to implement their ideas. They never actually proposed any new ideas. Instead they were content to demonize liberal Democrats. When voters finally gave Republicans a chance to prove they could do better, they failed.

The same thing will be true about taxes. Trickle down tax cut plans that were supposed to make life better for the middle class have failed spectacularly at the state level and nationally. But here it comes again in even a worse form than what was passed during the Bush years.

Republican voters are unhappy that the party isn’t delivering on Trump’s promises. Trump used this anger to get himself elected. But voters haven’t stopped there. They continue to elect bomb throwers at the state and local level. Newly elected Senator Moore in Alabama has said he shares Rand Paul’s view regarding healthcare reform and would have joined him to vote against that bill. Moore will likely make it more difficult rather than easier to get Trump’s agenda through the senate.

The bottom line is that Trump lies have painted the party into a corner on many issues.

The claims that Obamacare is failing make it more difficult to pass bipartisan legislation that most agree would solve the current set of problems. Passing that legislation would force Trump to admit that Obamacare isn’t failing and can be improved with a couple of simple tweaks. If that’s true, then why the continued effort to tear it down and replace it with something that kills Medicaid and takes coverage away from millions of people?

Claims that we have to build a very expensive wall across our southern border to protect our country from the threat of illegal immigration makes it more difficult to pass a bill to address the plight of “Dreamers”. Trump’s base perceives a dreamer deal to be a loss for Trump in the fight to kick illegal immigrants out of the country.

Trump’s various lines in the sand regarding Korea have only encourage Kim Jong Un to become more aggressive. In other administrations, tough talk in public is cover for behind the scenes diplomacy that ultimately resolves the issue. That doesn’t work in Trump-world where he has to win and is willing to undermine his own Secretary of State’s efforts to defuse this dangerous escalation. Tillerson became the person who failed Trump on Korea.

Trumps pathological need to always be right was on public display in his response to the hurricane devastation in Puerto Rico. While people were suffering because of the logistics challenges of getting aid from the ports out to the people, Trump was picking a fight with professional athletes. When the mayor of San Juan called him out on it, he suggested that it was her fault and a cultural failing of the Puerto Rican people that there weren’t enough truck drivers willing to leave their struggling families to get supplies off the docks. Doesn’t the army have truck drivers? I thought that disaster relief was all about sending a bunch of people into an area to do those things that the local population couldn’t do for themselves. We fill in the gaps until the local population can get back on their feet and take care of their own needs themselves.

During his tour of the island, he told those without shelter, food, clean drinking water, sanitation, and medical services that they should be grateful that it wasn’t a real disaster like Katrina. The implication being that if it were a REAL disaster like Katrina, the government would have been better prepared and would be providing more help. But the government WASN’T prepared to deal with the aftermath of Katrina and it wasn’t prepared to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico. That’s Trump’s fault.

We all know how the story of the naked emperor ended. It will be interesting to see when and how truth ultimately takes down this naked President.

Let’s stick to RealClearPolitics as an average. That average almost hit 42% after the debt ceiling deal. It is now back under 40% based on everything that has come apart since then. Rassmussen remains an outlier.

One small rewrite my friendThe cause is years of Republican bad faith campaigning.

You wrote -The cause is years of Republican bad faith campaigning.

Should read – The cause is years of Republican/Democrat bad faith campaigning.

Surely you are aware…..

Not suggesting the the Democrats haven’t campaigned in bad faith.

Just listing the examples of where bad faith campaigning on the part of Republicans have put them in a position where they can’t deliver on their promises. So instead they replace those promises with legislation which reflects their ideology. I already listed a few. The promise to replace Obamacare with something that covered more people for less money with better benefits. That morphed into a policy covering fewer people with less benefits for more money, BUT also eliminated that huge entitlement program called Medicare. The promise for tax reform that benefits the middle class instead of the wealthy, doesn’t explode the deficit, and makes tax filing easy morphed into a program that benefits the wealthy and big business instead of the middle class, does explode the deficit, and makes tax filing easier by eliminating deductions that benefit the middle class. Here are a few more. Promise on social issues like abortion and marriage equality becomes pass tax cuts, corporate welfare, cuts to social programs, and deregulation. Promise that the financial industry could manage itself becomes global financial meltdown. The promise that we are going to be greeted as liberators, morphs into $6T of expense in a failed nation-building experiment. Promise that we are going to remake Iraq into a democracy that will stabilize the region morphs into an invasion that destabilized the region, caused Iraq and North Korea to start nuclear weapons programs, and gave Russia an opportunity to regain influence by supporting Assad in Syria.

You are going to say that Obama promised that if you like your doctor you will be able to keep him. That turned out not to be true for some people, but most people were able to keep their doctor. So clearly there is a difference in scale here. Under Obama, some people purchased insurance in narrow networks that didn’t include their physicians. Under Trump, where the promise was more people insured for less money with better coverage, 32M people lose their coverage. If there are other examples of Democrats promising one thing and delivering another, please feel free to list them.

As a result, it is entirely appropriate for the newly courageous Bob Corker to ask the basic question – is this guy capable of handling the responsibilities of the office that he occupies? Will he end up leading us into a nuclear conflict because of his hasty response to some perceived insult? Does he really care that his attacks on Corker will likely doom his tax bill? Does he care that his attacks on Puerto Ricans combined with his slow response to their needs could drive many of them out of Puerto Rico and into Florida? Not only will they be more expensive to care for in Florida than they would be if they stayed in Puerto Rico, but because they are already US citizens they will be able to vote in the next election. Because they vote largely democratic, they could easily tip the balance of power in that state to Democrats in the next statewide or national election.

I can list many but that’s just not helpful. I.E. Nancy and senator Reid promised to end the war and bring everyone home. A promise they simply couldn’t keep.

That’s true. Democrats gained control of Congress and attempted to pass legislation to force a withdrawl of US forces from Iraq. They were stopped by Republicans who continued to support Bush and opposed those efforts. They also didn’t have enough democratic votes to override a veto. The stark difference is that in 2008 when they did gain control of the government and the White House, they did withdraw troops from Iraq as promised.

To put that into the current context, Trump and the Republicans promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better that covered more people with better coverage at a lower cost. The plan they proposed however was not better. It was WAY worse. It took away healthcare from 32M, raised the cost of coverage, and reduced the quality of coverage. For Democrats to fail on their Iraq promise in this way, they would have promised to end the war in Iraq, and then when they finally had the power to do so, voted instead to send more troops in a renewed effort to win the war rather than just end it.

I am in favor of what Trump did to the ACA a week or so ago by cutting of the funding that he did. Since congress didn’t repeal and replace like they and he promised, he SHOULD do something to break it. Why? It will force congress to do something to fix it. President Obama and the Dems broke the health care system. As you know it’s because I believe they did that to get to single payer. ie create the caous…. I would do exactly what Trump did, create a little caous of my own.

I am in favor of what Trump did to the ACA a week or so ago by cutting of the funding that he did. Since congress didn’t repeal and replace like they and he promised, he SHOULD do something to break it. Why? It will force congress to do something to fix it. President Obama and the Dems broke the health care system. As you know it’s because I believe they did that to get to single payer. ie create the caous…. I would do exactly what Trump did, create a little caous of my own.

Sorry don’t share your point of view. He is president of the United States, not present of the 20% of the population who think he is doing a good job. This is the “mad man” theory of governing where Trump is the mad man who is willing to visit hardship and death on millions of Americans unless someone more reasonable steps forward. His party is fractured and can’t govern without the help of Democrats. Rather than back the bi-partisan effort to fix the problems that has created in healthcare, he is still trying to get something passed with only Republican votes. It’s not going to happen because he has no credibility with any but his most ardent supporters.

Please explain how Obama and the Dems “broke” healthcare. A comment like that demonstrates that you have been living inside the right-wing bubble for too long. ACA cost less than originally forecast. It has saved jobs rather than costing them. It has brought the number of uninsured in this country to historic lows. It has reduced the rate of growth in healthcare costs. If this is your definition of “broken”, it is your perspective and not the legislation that was broken.

BTW the solutions to the current problems of the ACA are simple and relatively inexpensive compared to ANY of the proposals that Republicans have presented.

The ACAis not sustainable. He cut of the subsidies to the insurence companies and that proves it. not living in the bubble and I would HOPE he can cut a deal with the democrats on healthcare but not sure they are willing.

Also you’ve ble is providing you with Trump hate 93% of the time research shows. Evidenced by your comment that Trump only wants republican help with the ACA. He has said numerous times he’ll welcome the Dems to get something done.

Hi Jeff,
I recently learned something new courtesy of the DNC. In an email it said this, “I personally would prefer that you not forward to cisgender straight white males…..”

Cisgender- people whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth.

I thought to send you this so you’d be up to speed on the latest terminology.
If I hadn’t stumbled on the article I wouldn’t have known. I understand this is important because now it seems you need to mentally confirm the fact of gender you were born. It seems it’s not a fact but optional. Who knew?

Whatever the Democratic Party did during the 2016 campaign didn’t work because they lost. Hopefully they will be wise enough not to repeat that performance.

Fortunately, the Trump administration has re-invigorated Democratic voters, as the most recent elections have demonstrated. Suburban Democrats are angry and heading to the polls in record numbers to express their anger by voting for every Democrat on the ballot.

That’s why Republicans are retiring in record numbers (also some don’t want their legacy in office to be tainted by association with Trump – that’s what you get with low approval ratings).

Premiums will likely go up. According to the CBO that’s Trump’s fault. Based on exit polling from this past weeks elections, the vast majority of voters who supported Democrats and supported ballot initiatives expanding healthcare also blame Trump for attempting to dismantle Obamacare.

Cap this all off with the revelation that Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for Jeff Sessions Alabama Senate seat, has been accused of being a pedophile by multiple women. So Alabama voters are going to have a choice of voting for an accused pedophile or voting for a Democrat. Perhaps this doesn’t seem wonderfully ironic to you, but it makes sense to me. Alabama voters already voted overwhelmingly for someone who bragged about his sexual assaults, only the later play them off as locker room talk. Now they are presented with an even more “belief” shaking choice. Here’s a guy who claims to be a staunch defender of the ten commandments, but clearly forgot several of them as a younger man when he took advantage of underage girls. If they vote this guy in, what will the next candidate have to do to find where the boundaries of acceptable behavior in the Republican party really are?

So please don’t bleat to me about corruption in the bankrupt Democratic Party until you explain to me why Roy Moore is still on the Republican ballot in Alabama.

Also you’ve ble is providing you with Trump hate 93% of the time research shows.

Please post your reference to research that supports this claim.

Evidenced by your comment that Trump only wants republican help with the ACA. He has said numerous times he’ll welcome the Dems to get something done.

Dems are obviously willing to work with Trump. They got a small deal done on the debt ceiling and Trump’s job approval went up. They had another verbal deal on DACA that Trump backed out of because he was afraid of the flack that he was getting.

There WAS a deal on the table to get Alexander-Murray healthcare done too, which trump initially supported, and then torpedoed when he backpedaled on concessions that he needed from Democrats in order to make the deal. In effect, Trump was offering to trade his support for Cost Sharing Payments which help keep premiums low for some Obamacare exchange customers for removal of the individual mandate which would immediately raise premiums for every Obamacare customer and likely lead to the collapse of all exchanges.

That sound like a reasonable deal to you?

He SAYS he wants to make a deal, but so far his deeds haven’t matched his words. He did one deal. He welshed on a second deal. He killed a third deal when his ask was WAY more than his give. In other words, it is an ACT which you for some reason have fallen for. This guy is NOT a deal maker. He is a deal breaker.

Obamacare reduced personal bankruptcies from medical costs by 50%. They used to be half of all bankruptcies. There were 766K personal bankruptcies in 2015.
The worse Republican proposal would have tripled the number of uninsured. That suggests rough math that repealing obamacare would increase personal bankruptcies by at least 250K a year. Over 10 years the impact would be 2.5M additional bankruptcies. That enough hardship for you?

YS) That’s why Republicans are retiring in record numbers (also some don’t want their legacy in office to be tainted by association with Trump – that’s what you get with low approval ratings).

MR) glad you noticed. Let’s see if it reaches the level of President Obamas level. Here’s the beach mark Trump need to exceed. The Democrats lost ever election from 2010 – 2016 in clouding dog catcher in Hooterville, except President Obamas reelection. That’s the standard. You didn’t hang all those losses very loudly, or at all, on President Obama, so in all fairness you shouldn’t with Trump either.

Media bias. It was interesting to watch the tone of the results coverage Tuesday. Surely you noticed the difference? Lively, upbeat, and celebratory. I comparisons to the funeral like coverage a year ago where commentators were actually crying. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.

And not that the media announced but 82% of Trump supporters and 78% of Hillary supporters in exist polling said they would vote for the same candidate again. This means as of Tuesday, given the same choices Trump wins by even more. (Assuming same turnout) Note – I heard this and haven’t followed up to support.

Trump really didn’t lose anything Tuesday. The media, and you it seems, are making a big deal out of-

The governors race in Virginia? A seat held by democrats and a state Hillary won.

The governors race in NJ? Enough said

The Mayors race in NYC????

Jeff, the republicans failed on overturning or making changes to the ACA. If the fail on taxes, no one may ever vote for them again. I’m being a little extreme there…. why should they. They run on three things and those two are absolutely in their control. (Supreme Court Judges being the third)

YS)What do you think happens to people when they can’t afford healthcare. Some go bankrupt. Some die.

MR) I focused on you use of the word MILLIONS.

If it the responsibility of our government? Maybe in a socialist society. I will remain opposed. However the ACA will NEVER be taken away. Republicans a barking up the wrong tree.

Voting for Roy Moore? Don’t know if I would. You clearly articulate the case against him. Is it true? He says no. I certainly don’t know. Is it odd it gets releveled now? You’re being nieve however did you want Hillary in the Whitehouse. After all she prosecuted her husbands accusers in the 90’s.

glad you noticed. Let’s see if it reaches the level of President Obamas level. Here’s the beach mark Trump need to exceed. The Democrats lost ever election from 2010 – 2016 in clouding dog catcher in Hooterville, except President Obamas reelection. That’s the standard. You didn’t hang all those losses very loudly, or at all, on President Obama, so in all fairness you shouldn’t with Trump either.

We’ve been through this before. Democrats did not lose every election. Please stop saying that. If Republicans won every election during that period of time the House would have been 100% Republican since every house seat is up every two years.

You can use whatever standard you want. My measure is majorities. If voters restore Democratic majorities in the House and/or Senate, they are sending a clear signal that they don’t like what the Republican majorities have been (or have not been) doing with the majorities they gave them in 2016.

Democrats paid a big price in the house in 2010 for passing healthcare reform. I believe we will see a similar backlash in 2018 for Republicans failure to keep their promise to replace Obamacare with something that covered more people, with better coverage, for less money.

Media bias. It was interesting to watch the tone of the results coverage Tuesday. Surely you noticed the difference? Lively, upbeat, and celebratory. I comparisons to the funeral like coverage a year ago where commentators were actually crying. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.

Sorry I don’t watch any broadcast news. As I’ve said before, it is all corrupt. I do listen to NPR. The news was that Democrats ran stronger than anticipated. The question is whether this is indication of a change in attitudes of voters or not. Those are all legitimate questions and not evidence of media bias. I’m just curious what you think should been reported as news.

Please provide some reference that support this claim. What has Trump done to alter the economy in any meaningful way? Fortunately a majority of voters continue to attribute the current economic strength to Obama rather than Trump. Even the right leaning Rassmussen concedes that half of those polled still credit Obama for current economic strength.

The media are clearly biased, all reporting is done as a representation of the “home team.” Even when the reporting is not negative it is done from the perspective of the “Michigan Wolverines” as an example.

Example – The Ohio State Buckets are a very highly ranked team with outstanding players. Urban Myers has done a great job getting top players to go there. What does Michigan have to do to beat them? Well UM is doing better but still behind. An over whelming number of people nationally want them to win. Ohio state has done some questionable things to get the better players. UM is such a great school is hard to believe they won’t do better. There is marked improvement and the team they are building should win. Etc etc etc.

Do you understand that? It’s cheerleading. The analysis is ALWAYS done from the democrats perspective. So everything can be factually correct but negatively and or biasly slanted. Just watch.

YS)We’ve been through this before. Democrats did not lose every election. Please stop saying that. If Republicans won every election during that period of time the House would have been 100% Republican since every house seat is up every two years.

MR) and my dear friend I’ve said this before. “Get a sense of humor.” It’s called hyperbole!!!! Do you really want me to list every thing the Dems lost from 2010 – 2016? It comes off less damaging when I use my statement of hyperbole!!! I do it for you!!! Laughter, it’s funny!!! Like when Trump asked the Russians to find Hillarys emails!!!! It’s funny!!!!!

MR) and my dear friend I’ve said this before. “Get a sense of humor.” It’s called hyperbole!!!! Do you really want me to list every thing the Dems lost from 2010 – 2016? It comes off less damaging when I use my statement of hyperbole!!! I do it for you!!! Laughter, it’s funny!!! Like when Trump asked the Russians to find Hillarys emails!!!! It’s funny!!!!!

Might have been funny the first time. Oft repeated, it is no longer funny because it is no longer intended to be a joke.